An affordable, rugged, secure, and open hardware platform for battery powered connected things with ESP32

We have put a lot of effort into making making demos that demonstrate the capabilities of Hornbill ESP32. The single board can replace Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and a microcontroller shield. In this update we would like to share a tutorial on building Hornbill Lights; which uses two core components of the ESP32 module. One is the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) peripheral and the other is the built-in remote peripheral. Referred as RMT in the ESP-IDF documentation. The RMT peripheral can be used to generate precise timing. This can be used in several application where timing can be generated without depending on the processor. We use RMT to drive the WS2812 LED. If it was any other normal micro, it would have consumed precious processor cycles for the timer.

This tutorial covers the list of components used, the schematic, source code, the apps and tips on installation of lights. The complete source code for the hardware (as well the app software) is also shared.

The Hornbill Lights Kit, which is listed on the campaign page comes with all the parts required for this build.

We will be covering the basics of BLE and RMT peripheral in the tutorials to come. Although the peripherals require complex tutorials and Arduino support, these will make them a lot easier to use in a project. We need your support during the campaign to enable us to continue firmware development. So please do share the project, spread the word and keep the pledges coming!